


Mixed Drabbles

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:31:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A selection of drabbles, mostly from Sentinel Thursday prompts</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mixed Drabbles

 

Mixed Drabbles

By Bluewolf

The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg

He was my holy grail.

I never thought, back then when we first met... He did, though. He realised we couldn't let the bad guys know he had an edge. But he needed control.

Needed me.

Nobody ever needed me before. Heady stuff for Naomi's son, whose role model never showed any sense of responsibility towards others' needs.

When did that change for me? When we became friends? When I moved into Jim's home?

Whenever it was, I know now that I can't reveal what he is.

"My thesis, The Sentinel, is a fraud."

*** __

_Sentinel Thursday prompt 'retail therapy'  
_

 

Retail Therapy

Blair was walking briskly along the road when the words on the sign caught his eye. Curiosity made him stop, pause, and turn to look at it properly.

**RETAIL THERAPY**

**Are you addicted to buying things you don't really need?**

**Are you in debt because of your addiction?**

**Come to RETAIL THERAPY - a discussion group aimed at helping you control your need to keep buying.**

Underneath was an address.

Blair shook his head. It might help some people. What Jim needed was the opposite; a group aimed at encouraging people to _buy_ new things occasionally!

***

_Sentinel Thursday prompt 'rack'_

A Visit to the Arctic

Creak. Creak. C-rack!

Oops. The ice was breaking.

Why hadn't Agwe, the tribal shaman, warned him that a thaw was likely?

Because he hadn't known? Some of the men had gone out unwarned, to hunt for seals.

Blair knew there was some risk, but those Viking runes carved on the rock of the island had sounded so tempting, just a straight walk over the ice...

He glanced back. No, going on was closer to safety.

Cautious wouldn't make him any lighter. He speeded up, urged on by the cracking sounds behind him.

Apologetic, Agwe met him as he reached safety.

***

_Sentinel Thursday prompt 'right'_

Left

When he had taken his truck to the garage for a service, Jim hadn't realized he'd have to go and see a witness - urgently - the same day. So they'd had to go in Blair's Volvo. It wasn't bad for leg room, but it lacked the comfortable spaciousness that was his first consideration in any vehicle he bought.

"Not far now," Jim said. "You turn left here. No, not right - LEFT!"

As Blair changed direction into the left-hand road, Jim breathed a sigh of relief. A right turn would have landed them in the water of the harbor.

***

_Sentinel Thursday prompt 'one hundred percent'_

One Hundred Percent

'One hundred percent natural fabric.'

That'll be right. Read the small print, you'll soon find it isn't.

Ever since man-made 'fibre' was developed, manufacturers have been mixing it with natural fibres because they say it'll provide more durability.

Cotton mixed with polyester. Wool mixed with acrylic.

Improved durability? Maybe. Improved profit, more like. Same with 'new, improved' recipes on things like ready meals. New, yes. Tastes better? Nope. Improved? Just the firm's profits.

Do I sound cynical? I suppose I do. But it's so difficult these days to get any one hundred percent natural fabric clothes for my sentinel.

***

A drabble from Jim's PoV

Jim Ellison sat looking at his sleeping friend, glad that Blair had finally relaxed enough to doze off. Since his fall six hours earlier, Blair had been tense - not exactly silent, but... well, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Blair's fall when he slipped in the hotel restaurant had been awkward, Jim not quite fast enough to break it. An x-ray two hours earlier had confirmed Jim’s instinctive diagnosis; now Blair was in bed awaiting the operation to pin his hip. Grimly, Jim began to plan Blair's case against their hotel.

At least for now, Blair was resting.

The same incident, from Blair's PoV

Boring.

After five days, Blair Sandburg knew that was the one word he would choose to describe his current position.

Of course, 'painful' also came to mind, but pain was intermittant. Boredom was constant.

He laughed at himself, aware that nobody else would appreciate the irony.

He was an anthropologist, for heaven's sake! An observer! The scope for a paper was theoretically endless, here in the ultimate in closed environments.

There was the senile man in the bed across the ward. Fascinating the way his mind moved in loops... But no. He couldn't concentrate.

Having a broken hip really sucked!

_***_

_Sentinel Thursday prompt 'myth'_

Mythtake

"What the hell happened, Chief?"

Blair's swollen face turned his attempted grin into a grimace. "I wath taking a clath for Dr. Mathterth. He'd given me noteth, but he'd made a mythtake. One of the detailth wath wrong, and would have mythled the class.

"Tho I changed it.

"When I told him, Dr. Mathterth thaid it wath deliberate, to thee if the clath would thee where he wath trying to mythdirect them. But he didn't tell me.

"I wath annoyed, turned away too quickly, lotht my balanthe and fell downthtairth... "

"And now, we're going to the hospital," Jim said decisively.

_***_

_Sentinel Thursday prompt 'red'_

The Accident

The now-dry stain had been the bright red of the blood that had soaked into the rug.

Not even Jim knew how the knife he was using had slipped, slashing an artery.

Blair had spared thirty seconds to call for an ambulance and open the door before grabbing a towel, adding it to the one Jim was using to try to stem the bleeding.

He rolled up the bloodstained rug, replacing it with the one he'd just bought. They didn't need this reminder of how close Jim'd been to death.

Then Blair headed for the hospital to bring Jim home.

***

A drabble set just before my very short story 'The Island of Apples'

He had made this trip many times over the years, in many different boats. Sometimes he had been with others - occasionally, many others; once it was a huge ocean liner with so many passengers he hadn't expected it to make landfall safely. More often he had been alone.

Strange, he reflected, how sometimes it took no time, being a short, easy journey over a calm sea, while other times it had seemed to be endless, a struggle against waves and wind before whatever vessel he was in reached its island destination.

But the light ahead always showed the way.


End file.
